Oil imports slip 14% in 2009

PHILIPPINE oil imports dropped almost 14% last year primarily due to slow demand brought about by the global financial crisis.

Oil imports declined to 13.603 million tons (MT) last year from 15.758 MT in 2008, according to data released during the recent 108th Bureau of Customs (BOC) anniversary celebrations.

The value of imports also dipped almost 40% to P330.56 billion from P542.87 billion.

The volume of crude imports went down 32.6% to 6.589 MT. Revenues disappointed at P19.820 billion from the 2008 collection of P34.6 billion.

The volume of petroleum products, on the other hand, grew 17.2%. “Petroleum products being the sole import winner in 2009 registered a total shipment of 7.014 MT compared with the previous year’s 5.984 MT,” according to the 2009 report of Customs commissioner Napoleon Morales.

“Petroleum imports valued at P177.81 billion, however, were not enough to reverse the downward trend among oil-related products since (the figure) was much higher in 2008 at P212 billion simply because of a stronger peso,” Morales said.

The BOC has intensified the monitoring of oil imports and use of tax credit certificates by oil companies, the commissioner said.

“For compliance audits, I ordered the use of the international best practice of industry-selectivity criterion in prioritizing audits – putting first the industries where undervaluation and technical smuggling are most likely to occur,” he added.

The BOC has formed the Task Force on Oil to intensify its revenue collection.

Last year, the BOC processed a total of 54.331 MT of imports (oil and non-oil) with an aggregate value of P2.4 trillion, down 5.5% from the 57.5 MT recorded in 2008 valued at P2.9 trillion.